Jury Selection: The Art of Turning Bias Into Cause

In yesterday’s column in the New York Law Journal, our managing partner Ben Rubinowitz, assisted by James Rubinowitz of Rubinowitz Law and Evan Torgan of Torgan Cooper & Aaron, wrote about the art of turning juror bias into a challenge for cause.

In New York, civil trial lawyers have only three peremptory challenges, while challenges for cause are unlimited. The strategy is to save peremptories by guiding jurors to acknowledge bias—turning them into cause challenges.

Jurors rarely admit outright they “can’t be fair.” Instead, they hedge—“I’ll try my best” or “It depends on the facts.” Skilled attorneys use analogies and careful questioning to reframe this uncertainty. For example, comparing a juror’s “I’ll try” to a pilot saying, “I’ll try my best to land the plane” helps illustrate the risk, prompting candid admissions of bias.

Whether uncovering a defense lean from a juror whose spouse is a physician or revealing a plaintiff-leaning juror’s sympathy, the goal is the same: identify bias through empathy and logic, secure a cause challenge, and preserve peremptories for the toughest cases.